


Dark Night

by SharpestRose



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman (Millerverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-17
Updated: 2011-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In February 2005, I stated that I would respond to anything objectionable in Frank Miller's new Batman work by writing a story in which pre-Crisis Jason taught Carrie Kelley the Batusi. In July 2005, I read Frank Miller's new Batman work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Night

  
"She's generating nightmares."

"What? Hang on a second." Dick shifts the phone to his other ear, holding it in place with his shoulder as he scrubs at the pot. He should know better by now than to let Babs cook spaghetti the night before she has to make a speech. Teflon never deserves such treatment. "Nightmares, you say?"

Tim sighs. "Yes. A couple of weeks' worth; every night since she got here."

"You don't think it's maybe stress? Having a refugee from another dimension drop by for a visit does that, I hear."

Dick can hear the shake of Tim's head. "I don't think so. I've been doing some reading on it, and I think it's a condition called 'situational dissonance'. It's going to last another three months or so, as far as I can tell from what I've found out."

"There's a term for it?"

"Never underestimate the importance of speculative fiction in one's library, Dick. But you're getting off the subject."

"Nightmares. Right."

"It's not just me getting them. You remember the Spoiler?"

"If I ever dared forget, you'd remind me, I'm sure." Dick's smile is probably audible in his voice, but he can't help it. Villains never had cute blonde sidekicks when _he_ was Robin; it's only fair that Tim suffer teasing as a balance for all that good luck.

"It's not my fault I have a nemesis."

"You have your own miniature Catwoman, Little Brother. Not exactly the same thing as a nemesis."

" _Anyway_ ," Tim says, steering the conversation back onto its rails with such dismissive aplomb that Dick can't help but stifle a laugh behind a cough. "The Spoiler says she's been having nightmares too, for the same amount of time."

"So the pair of you have given up on that whole rooftop slugfest form of courting, and are now meeting for lattes and chatting about your dreams?"

"You don't understand." Tim's voice is suddenly very quiet, and grave. "These aren't just nightmares, Dick. They're like every terrible thought you've had, all at once. Everything your life would be in some dark psychotic mirror-world."

"Timmy, you screamed at the end of _The Ring_. Not even the Japanese version. Your tolerance for terror is not world class."

"Fine," Tim mutters. " _You_ take her in for a weekend. Let's see what _you_ think of it."

\--

Carrie figures that she's glad that Batman's off the planet, doing League stuff.

'Cept that the idea that he's on the League at all is kind of a head-mess.

Every time she walks past one of the photos of him on the wall, she feels like asking if everyone got doped up on Joker Juice or something. All those _smiles_. It's freaky and wrong.

She keeps to herself, much as she can. Reading in the library.

She needs a new prescription on her glasses, and has to squint to make out the words on the page.

Or maybe that's because she keeps on crying.

She just wants to go home. Back to her own stupid world and a Manor that's just rubble and a Bruce who doesn't smile much at all.

But all the worlds that can be contacted need to be told about what's coming. About the Crisis. So here she is. One-way ticket, no refunds.

She narrows her eyes, glaring at the page, and tries to keep reading. The Manor's heated, but sometimes she shivers.

\--

Tim's not shocked when he gets a call early on Saturday morning. Carrie's been at Dick's for twenty-four hours.

"I'm suprised you didn't phone halfway through the night."

"I would have, but I was too petrified to move out of bed."

"I did warn you." Tim feels his smugness is at least partially justified. Dick didn't believe him, and now Dick knows better.

All Dick says in reply to that is "Tim," and Tim remembers what some of the dreams are like, and doesn't feel so smug anymore.

"I'm sorry, Dick. I couldn't make you understand any other way." He pinches the bridge of his nose and draws in a deep breath. "I got a message from Jason just a little while ago. The Society's finished their mission, and he'll be back in the city this afternoon. So with him here, and Bruce due back in a few days, I was thinking that Gotham's going to have all the protection it needs, and that maybe I could convince my parents that I've been given a science scholarship to study for a few months in New York..." The deep breath runs out, so Tim stops talking.

"But if both of us are getting these nightmares when we're near her, what's to say Jason won't?"

"I don't know what else to do. Stephanie -- that's, um, the Spoiler, I mean -- has gone to stay with friends in another state until this fades, too. You've only had one night and you know you can't handle another; we've had weeks of this."

\--

Before Carrie left her home, they planned for every eventuality she might have to face.

Or, at least, they figured that they did. "This is what you'll have to do if the Joker's in power", "This will be the plan if Superman's working for the Soviets", "If Green Lantern has gone bad, you'll react this way".

No matter how much worse the world was, she'd handle it.

Too bad they never worked out what she should do if it turned out to be better.

The hardest part of it is Robin. In her life, Robin has always been a part of her, a name for the legacy she threw herself headlong into. But she's never had to face someone else who took that name as theirs and wrapped themselves in its colours.

She doesn't know how to react to Tim, who trains in the Cave until dinnertime after school and then changes back into his ordinary clothes, grumbling about how his parents always want to take him out for dinner when they're in town.

She doesn't know how to respond to Dick, the name that means 'estranged enigma' in her world. A police officer with a politician wife sounds so ordinary and... _real_ , as if there's as much value in his daylight hours as in his nights in the air.

And she doesn't know what to make of Jason's image in the photographs on the wall. That name has meant 'good soldier' and 'the cost our side must pay in this war' for her, not a young man with reddish-blond hair an a happy grin.

He looks so at ease, standing with his arm around Bruce's waist, waving to whoever took the photo. Tim, most likely. And Bruce looks like he's content, too, with his arm stretched across Jason's shoulders.

Carrie sometimes imagined Bruce's arm across her shoulders, just like that. But those day-dreams never had such smiles in them, and she's glad of that difference. If the Bruce in the photographs looked anything more like the Batman she left behind, she figures that her heart might break.

\--

"You're Carrie, right?"

She looks up from her book and nods, pushing her glasses up her nose. Jason's leaning on the doorframe, looking like one of those people who'd be comfortable anywhere. Carrie can't really remember what being at ease felt like.

"I'm Jay. Or Red Hood, if you want to get all formal about it."

She wants to name herself. She hasn't done so since the first night of explanations. Back when Tim thought she was fascinating, before he knew she was a conduit for bad dreams. Everyone's just called her 'Carrie' or 'young lady'.

"I'm Robin," she says now, softly, and Jason's smile gets wider.

"Cool. Too bad we don't have a secret handshake or anything."

"Yeah." She feels bad for him. Tomorrow, after he's had the dreams, he won't want to have anything to do with her. He'll probably regret being so nice to her now.

"I shoud get back to reading," she says.

"No, wait. Come down to the Cave. I haven't had a proper workout in two and a half weeks, and my bones are aching for it. We can talk more while we warm up."

"No, really, I should -"

"I know about the dreams. Tim told me. It's okay."

She knows he'll feel different tomorrow, but shrugs anyway. "Whatever."

Even though the Cave in Carrie's world is now playing home to a ragtag army-in-training, the one here feels more crowded when empty than the one at home ever did or could when full.

This is a home.

"What do you do?" Carrie asks as they reach the bottom of the stairs and head for the practise mats. "I mean, um, do you have a job, like Dick?"

"I teach dance, tap, and kiddie gymnastics a couple of afternoons a week."

"Oh, right. Checking for potential Robins. I get it," Carrie says distractedly, gaze caught on the robot dinosaur. She'll never completely get used to all of Bruce's giant trophies.

When Jason doesn't answer, she glances over. He's giving her a slightly puzzled look.

"No, just teaching them fun things."

"Oh." She feels herself blush a little, and talks more to cover her embarrassment. "Kids tap dancing always makes me think of Shirley Temple movies. _A Little Princess_."

"I like that one too. She gets to wear some great little outfits. And there's that fantastic dream sequence about the witch and the ballerinas."

"I used to watch it when I was a kid. My parents used the teev as a babysitter. I used to," Carrie smiles sadly at the memory, looking down at her feet. "I used to pretend I was her. The tape we had of the movie was colourised, and her hair was this awful brassy red, so I thought she looked just like me. That I looked just like her. I wanted velvet dresses, and tap shoes, and most of all I wanted a Dad who'd tell me..." She blinks, hard. She's _not_ going to cry, not in front of this man who has everything she didn't even know she wanted. But the tears don't care if she wants to cry or not, and start falling anyway. "...that I was a good soldier."

She covers her face with her hands and begins to sob.

Jason grabs her in a hug, and that just makes her cry harder because she's always known, down in that part of her that told her she was Robin, that Robin should be a hugger.

"Let it out. It's okay," Jason says, stroking her hair. "Hey, I like this 'do. What products are you using?"

It's random enough to make her laugh, her face all damp and blotchy against his shoulder.

"Sorry."

"It's okay. I'd be freaking in your position, too," Jason assures her. "Now, come on, get changed into sweats, and we'll make up a dance."

"Huh?"

"No, trust me, it's fun. We'll make up a dance. Stupidity and endorphins are a potent mix."

She's got nothing better to do. Maybe it won't be so bad. And he'll hate her tomorrow either way, so she might as well take friendship when she can. "Okay..."

\--

Three hours later, breathless and laughing, Carrie wants to beg Jason for just a few more minutes. But the sun's almost down, and so it's time for things to go back to normal. He'll go out and fight crime, and then come back and have the nightmares.

"We need a name for it," Jason declares, pouring his water bottle over his head and then rubbing his hair with a towel. Carrie's sure that this technique isn't listed in any hairstylist's manual. "The Batdance?"

"The _Batusi_."

"Hey, I like it." Jason grins. "It's got a ring to it. The Batusi it is. Do you wanna come out tonight? It's been a while since I hung out with Robin; Tim likes to patrol on his own."

Maybe this Gotham will make the same twisted kind of sense that hers always did. But maybe it won't, and the disappointment will be more than she can bear.

"No, I'm fine."

"C'mon. It'll be a blast."

She feels like such a sucker, falling for a smile and a nice word, but it's been a long and lonely two weeks.

\--

When they get back, Carrie is bruised and sore and aching.

She dances the goofy dance they made up around her room, and hums to herself, and pretends that she's not going to close her eyes and see terrible things.

Next time she sees Jason, he's not going to want to have anything to do with her.

She sits against the wall, staring at the bed she's been sleeping in. Maybe she could stay awake for the night. Just for tonight, just so she has one more day of a friend.

Her eyes are heavy, even as her blood thrums with energy. She figures that she just needs to rest them for a minute. Then she'll be okay. She'll stay up, and the nightmares will stay at bay.

As her eyelids slip closed, Carrie can feel tears prickle at the corners of them. There's nobody left to tell her she's a good soldier, and she's so tired of fighting.

The nightmares come, and drag her down into the dark.


End file.
